Intrinsic notes in the matter itself: history, prophecy, and dogma; sacred history's claim to truth

Now if we attend to the things themselves of Scripture, notes of divinity still far more illustrious and clearer will appear in them. Whatever Scripture contains is either histories and narrations of things past, or oracles and predictions of things future, or dogmas and precepts that mark no difference of time. Further, two things chiefly commend a history: the truth of the matters, and also their weight and moment — both of which sacred history claims for itself in an eminent way. And first, sacred history has many and great indications of truth. For either reason and the very nature of things give it suffrage, as with the history of the world's creation, which is proved by most strong arguments to have been made from nothing and in time. As for history, even the monuments of ancient and external writers also afford testimony to its truth — for example in the history of the universal flood, of the building of the tower of Babel, of the burning of Sodom and Gomorrah, of the Israelites' exit from Egypt — of which mention is made among approved and ancient historians whose fragments survive in Eusebius, Josephus, and others, and some of which are still current in men's hands.